


His Nose and Teeth

by Mnara



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s02e01 A Scandal in Belgravia, Friendship, John Being the World's Greatest Friend, M/M, Sherlock Being an Idiot, Sick Sherlock, talk of vomit but no actual vomit described
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-01 15:19:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mnara/pseuds/Mnara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set mid-way through "A Scandal in Belgravia," Sherlock has a bad reaction to the drug Irene gave him and things don't go so smoothly after John tucks him away to sleep it off. Lucky for Sherlock, John's not squeamish and knows a thing or two about caring for the sick--no matter how resistant Sherlock is to the idea. Also, Sherlock tries to figure out love and friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Nose and Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set midway through "A Scandal in Belgravia," shortly after Sherlock and John have their first encounter with Irene Adler. To recap: Sherlock goads John into hitting him in the alley before visiting Irene; they infiltrate her house but things don't go as planned; Sherlock ends up getting stabbed by an unknown syringe before Irene escapes; John brings Sherlock back to 221B, where he wakes briefly, rants about Irene, and then John puts him back to bed. The scene closes and this story jumps in as follows:

_“No, no, no, back to bed. You’ll be fine in the morning. Just sleep.”_

_“Of course I’ll be fine, I am fine. I’m absolutely fine!”_

_“Yes, you’re great. Now, I’ll be next door if you need me.”_

_“Why would I need you?”_

_“No reason at all.”_

* * *

 

Sherlock needs John.

“John!”

Sherlock is going to hurl. He needs to be in the loo—right now—but his dim bedroom is spinning and he can’t find the floor and he can feel his hands but someone hacked off his feet.

“John!”

Sherlock finds the edge of the bed and tumbles head first to the floor just as his bedroom door swings open. Familiar grey socks appear in his shifting field of vision. He reaches out and grasps John’s ankle.

“I’m going to vomit.”

All Sherlock can do is squeeze his eyes shut as John somehow lifts his limp body and gets the bottoms of Sherlock’s feet connected with the cool hardwood. John will get them to the loo; Sherlock just needs to keep it down a moment longer. He can feel John’s solid body pressed up against his side, a firm arm around his waist, as they maneuver down the hall and into the blessed room. The ceramic is cold on his bare feet and then also his knees as John lowers him before the toilet. Warm hands grasp his and guide them to either side of the porcelain ring that Sherlock is oh-so-pleased to find. He feels John’s hand on the back of his hot neck, tipping his head slightly forward and further ensuring he hits his mark.

“Okay, you’re settled. Go.”

“Is this friendship or pity?” Sherlock croaks, before he makes a new friend with the hallowed toilet.

 

* * *

 

When Sherlock wakes the second time, he’s hot as hell and his head pounds. He dimly registers that he’s lying on the bathroom floor. His cheek is pressed upon the ceramic, but he can see from the gathering condensation on the tile that he’s radiating an unreasonable amount of heat. Fever, then. He jumps when something cool presses against his forehead.

“Whatever she gave you, Sherlock, she gave you way too much. I can’t imagine she’d have repeat clients if this sort of hangover was par for the course. It’ll pass. Hang in there.”

So Sherlock ‘hangs in there’ by passing out again.

 

* * *

 

The third time Sherlock regains consciousness, he’s still on the floor, but quite a bit has changed. Firstly, there’s a fluffy towel under his cheek. Secondly, it seems that John has successfully manhandled him out of his black dress shirt (thank goodness). Thirdly, a glass of water is sitting by the place where John was before, and John himself is gone. Sherlock makes a weak attempt at sitting up but falls back to the fluffy towel the instant the room starts to spin. Instead, he reaches for the glass, slides it close, and thinks that with his genius, surely he can figure out how to take a sip while remaining horizontal.

The door creaks and Sherlock tilts his chin just enough to see John leaning on the frame.

“How ya feeling?”

Sherlock is feeling hot, dizzy and miffed. He doesn’t like being seen as weak or inferior to anybody—even temporarily. He doesn’t like that he was tricked and drugged. He doesn’t like being cared for or waited upon.

“Go away.”

“Still like crap then. Thirsty?”

Sherlock’s eyes dart back to the glass. The water is so close and yet the fever has zapped all his energy—he’s not even sure he can lift the glass, even if he could sit up. He resentfully concedes that he probably needs John for this, as well. Needing another person is an exceedingly tedious reality that Sherlock seems to be faced with more frequently since John became his flatmate.

“Yes,” he whispers. His throat is dry and sore. “Water, please.”

John steps into the loo and settles on his knees beside Sherlock. He has a clean flannel in his hands, which he dips into the glass of water until it soaks through, and then presses against Sherlock’s chapped lips. “Suck the water out of the flannel.”

Sherlock has a witty retort about simplicity and morons and how-many-years-of-medical-school-did-it-take-to-learn-to-moisten-a-flannel…but instead he takes the damp fabric in his mouth and greedily sucks all the water he can from it. Begrudgingly, and internally, he admits it’s a brilliant solution to his current horizontal condition. He shoots a brief glare at John—his best attempt at indignant appreciation—and John must understand, because he grins.

For a while, they remain silent as John continually dampens the fabric and holds it to Sherlock’s mouth. Sherlock is humiliated. He feels like an invalid being spoon fed. He’s sure that even as a baby he found spoon feeding inane and patronizing. And for some reason he hasn’t grasped yet, he’s particularly put out that it’s John doing the feeding. He spends the entire session glaring at John at best he can through the haze and spins. Every time his eyes focus, John is grinning wider. It’s infuriating.

After some time, John lets out a long sigh and presses the backs of his fingers to Sherlock’s clammy forehead. Sherlock understands the utilitarian purpose of the touch (to check his fever), but when John gently threads his fingers through Sherlock’s hair ( _affection?_ ), Sherlock growls and pulls away.

John presses his lips together in a grimace, but lets his hand drop. “You should move back to the bedroom.”

“I’m fine here,” Sherlock rasps.

“Trust me, I’m a doctor. Your fever is breaking and I’d bet it’s going to break into chills. I can’t keep you warm here on the tile, and I can’t carry you when you’re unconscious. We have to move you now.”

Before Sherlock can protest, John is sliding his arms around Sherlock’s torso and pulling him into a seated position.

“No, no, no! Not fine! This is not fine!” Sherlock gasps as the room spins wildly and his stomach attempts a cartwheel. “Stop!” John stops and Sherlock thinks he might be perpendicular to the floor, but it’s hard to tell, so he seizes hold of the only steady thing in the room: John. He gathers fistfuls of John’s shirt and presses his forehead against John’s shoulder, his eyes squeezed shut, and he focuses on this one, fixed point. “Please,” he says, mustering his most pitiful and also polite tone. “Please put me back on the floor.”

John’s arms tighten around his back.

“Sherlock,” he starts lowly. “Do you remember when we were at the pool with Moriarty, and there was a bomb sitting on the floor between us, and you looked at me and I nodded, and then you lowered the gun to the bomb…”

“What about it?”

“I put a lot of trust in you that day. I trusted that you knew what you were doing. I knew you and Moriarty were playing a game of chess and that the next move you’d make would be brilliant.”

“Obviously.”

“Well, right now I’m asking you to trust _me._ I know the stakes are different, but on that day I trusted you to take care of me and get me out of there alive. Today, I’m just trying to do the same for you. So please, will you dig through that stupid mind palace of yours, find the part about me being a doctor, and trust me?”

Sherlock hates doctors. But he likes John.

He tightens his grip on John’s shirt. “Go slow.”

Between concentrating on keeping his centre of gravity squarely on John’s shoulder, Sherlock does have time to marvel at John’s strength as he easily lifts Sherlock’s body off the floor. When Sherlock’s feet are under him, John pauses to let his friend adjust.

“Stay how you are,” John says. “Hold on to me. I’m going to turn and walk backward down the hallway. Keep your eyes closed and follow my lead.”

Sherlock hates following anybody, but his circumstances have him pinned, so he gathers all the fabric he can and allows John to shuffle him down the hall in the most awkward and *longest* hug he has ever experienced. Sherlock figures that this tedious embrace will probably exceed his personal quota of physical contact for the year. He also figures better it’s John than anyone else—he can’t abide by further exposure to Molly’s childlike touches to his arm in the lab, or Lestrade’s rather rough pats on the back, or worse, any contact at all from Mycroft. Only John seems to understand Sherlock’s need for personal space; Sherlock internally forgives him for this particular instance.

The trip is longer than Sherlock calculated. They must be in his bedroom by now. He opens his eyes for just a moment to check their position—and the world goes sideways.

“Shit! Shit!” John cries as Sherlock’s bedroom spins upside-down and Sherlock goes rightside-up and somewhere in between his body lands on something soft and his face lands on something hard. “Damn! Sorry!”

Sherlock groans, his eyes safely shut again, and touches his face. It’s already tender from the earlier blow he goaded John into for his little play-act with Irene Adler, but now he can feel that the small cut has split into something much bigger.

“Oh shit, damn!” John curses as Sherlock feels hands forcibly re-arranging his body on the bed. “Right into the side table. I tried to get you on the bed but you’re so damned lanky. Sorry Sherlock.”

John’s hand slides behind his neck and lifts it to tuck a pillow underneath. Sherlock fumbles with his own hands until he can find John’s and push them away. “Stop. Stop touching me. And get out.”

“Your cheek is bleeding.”

“I don’t care. Get out!”

“Sherlock, I’m only trying to help!” John shouts. John rarely raises his voice. Sherlock digs through his memory; up to this point, he can’t think he’s ever heard John shout. Still, he’s done with the touching and fussing and whatever comes after that.

“I don’t need your help! Now go away!”

There is a long silence, and Sherlock waits patiently for the weight by his side to lift off the bed, but it doesn’t. He carefully opens his eyes a tiny crack each and after a moment the room focuses. John is staring at him, his mouth slightly agape but his eyes soft. Sherlock isn’t a master at reading others’ emotions, but he’s getting good at reading John: perhaps, both appalled and sad?

“Mycroft did this to you.”

“Piss off.”

“Make me.”

Sherlock’s eyebrows shoot up and he opens his eyes a little wider. “Finding the fighter inside, John? Maybe I shouldn’t have started that tussle earlier today. I woke up the soldier.”

“I’m not looking to argue, Sherl—”

“Good. We both know who’d win.”

John sighs deeply. “No fighting. I’m just—” John shifts uncomfortably. “I’m just trying to understand why you won’t let me help you.”

Sherlock looks away. He’s not having this conversation. He closes his eyes, signalling the end of their interaction, and he listens rather smugly as John stands and pats down the hall. A moment later, the footsteps grow louder and Sherlock feels John’s weight sink the mattress low again.  

He feels sure fingers on his jaw, and he opens his eyes again as John turns his face toward him.

“Just let me mop up your cheek. Then I’ll leave.”

As John cleans the blood with a flannel and applies gauze, Sherlock looks openly into John’s face—really studies it—for the first time in months. John is always there, and somewhere along the way, Sherlock has stopped looking at him. Sherlock sees that his friend has laugh lines and crow’s feet. He has a day’s stubble. He has blond eyelashes and grey eyes; Sherlock had thought they were more blue, but in this light… And Sherlock realizes that John is _letting_ him look at his face. John carefully focuses on Sherlock’s cheek, taking much more time that he requires, as Sherlock inspects his face. When did John become so intuitive to Sherlock’s needs?

“It was never free,” Sherlock says suddenly. He surprises himself.

John’s eyes dart to meet his and then away again. He busies himself packing away the first-aid kit he’d fetched from the loo a moment before. Sherlock’s not sure why, but he keeps talking.

“Mycroft always wanted the upper hand. Leverage. He’d take advantage of me whenever he had the chance.”

“Even when you were sick or hurt?” John says quietly. He still doesn’t meet Sherlock’s eyes.

“He was the first to take care of me—he’d tell Mummy that she needn’t worry, he’d stay the night with me through a fever. He was brilliant at caring for me when I was sick. But it wasn’t free. Later, when it suited him, he’d use it against me. He’d humiliate me if he felt like it, or force me to do something for him as payment for the time spent.”

There is a long silence. John’s kit is packed up, so he looks at his hands.

“And when I was…” Sherlock clears his throat. He watches John’s face carefully as he continues. “…getting clean, he wanted to _help_ at every step. He took credit for my _progress._ He was so smug about being there for his _little brother._ And I knew that wasn’t free either. I doubt I’ll ever finish paying for that one.”

John purses his lips in thought. “Sherlock…” His tone is soft and careful, and Sherlock realizes that John is actually worried he’ll further upset him. As if it truly matters. “You do know that I don’t expect anything from you? Not for this. This is just me being me.”

“It’s not personal, John,” Sherlock says quickly. “When anyone helps me—especially when I’m…compromised—it just feels wrong. I get this feeling that I want to push them away.”

“Perhaps I could be the exception to that feeling?” John meets his eyes, finally, and Sherlock finds his mouth is open but no words come—because he believes John when he says there’s no expectation. Sherlock is more comfortable with manipulation and animosity than he is honesty and kindness. But John. This small, solid man has been nothing but honest and kind since they met at the lab, and Sherlock has stopped questioning John’s words. If anyone else wanted to be Sherlock’s exception—if anyone asserted their friendship was _not_ based in trade—Sherlock would question their words, their intentions, and their motivations. But not John. Sherlock stopped questioning these things in John a long time ago. But what he doesn’t understand is this: _why_ doesn’t John’s friendship come at a price?

“Do you love me, John?” Now Sherlock’s mouth seems to be operating outside his brain’s control. Maybe it’s a side effect of the drug?

“Sorry?”

Sherlock speaks very quickly: “Today, Irene Adler said that you must love me very much, because you avoided my nose and teeth when you hit me.”

John smiles. “Do you even know what love is?” There’s no derision in his voice.

“Of course,” he scoffs. “It’s a neurological mechanism in response to stimuli, usually in relation to another person, that fulfils the resource centre of the brain. You’re a doctor, John, you know this. When in proximity to that person, the brain fires oxytocin and vasopressin trigging the physical response of contentment or happiness.”

John smiles wider. “Oh, sure Sherlock, that’s why I didn’t break your nose or teeth, because I was experiencing a physical response to oxytocin.”

Sherlock opens his mouth to speak, but stops. He won’t spit back a retort. It will descend too quickly into argument. John seems to catch the harshness of his sarcasm and he nods to Sherlock.

“Sorry. That was mean,” he says with a tight smile. “Sherlock, I didn’t hurt your face this morning for the same reason I cancelled my date tonight to lug your sorry arse between the bed and the loo—because—” He pauses and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Because for some odd reason, it matters to me that you are safe and well and…happy. Hell, I don’t even like you most days, but your well-being does matter to me immensely. Is that love? Maybe. If it is, I can tell you it’s confused and irrational and different every day and yet always completely dedicated to this bizarre friendship.” He sighs. “I’m not sure that’s much of an answer, but it’s the truth.”

Sherlock searches his friend’s face, and as if he can tell there’s one more thing he needs to hear, John continues: “I do promise you—whether you call it love or not—that I will never demand anything in return for it.”

Something shifts in Sherlock. Perhaps it’s just the haze of the drug hangover finally lifting, or else it’s that Sherlock really does believe John that his friendship is given freely (which is good, because Sherlock knows he’s a terrible friend even on his good days—for certain he won’t care for John the next time he gets the flu…well, maybe he’ll bring him tea), but whatever the reason, the result is a small smile as Sherlock lets his eyes drift close.

“I love you, too, John.”

He can feel John’s body chuckle, rather than hear it. He imagines John is grinning and shaking his head as the weight lifts off the bed.

“Idiot.” John turns off the light and closes the door.

 

 

* * *

 

Hours later, Sherlock wakes with the chills, just as John predicted. He’s about to call for his friend, when the door opens quietly, and in walks John with his own duvet tucked under his arm. He fluffs it high and lets it settle over Sherlock’s shivering body.

“You’re almost done,” John whispers as he tucks the duvet around and under Sherlock like Sherlock’s Mummy used to do when he was a child. Sherlock doesn’t roll away. It’s just John being John, after all. John being a worrier; being a doctor; being his friend. “You’ll be back to yourself in no time.”

“John.” Sherlock meets his eyes when he speaks. “Thank you.”

His friend’s lips twitch upwards and the laugh lines at his eyes grow deeper. He leans over Sherlock and roughly rubs his arms to get the blood going.

“It’s okay then? If I give you a hand once in a while?”

Sherlock nods.

John grins wide, and before he stands up, he brushes a curl back from Sherlock’s forehead. _Affection?_ Sherlock warms a little.

“John?” Sherlock calls out and John pauses at the door. “Will you get me a cup of tea?”

“Don’t push it, prat.”

Sherlock grins and settles into the cozy duvet. His body rests soundly, knowing that his friend is next door, if he needs him.


End file.
